


arcanes of our own

by rhysenne



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Exhibitionism, F/M, Soulmates, Voldemort won, Voyeurism, fanfic writing!au, grey hermione, no beta we die like men, slytherins locker, snakeface voldie, sort of cracky, unrequited bellatrix / voldemort, yes i know this doesnt make a lot of sense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 00:33:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28591074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhysenne/pseuds/rhysenne
Summary: Voldemort won the war, and Hermione is stuck writing fan fiction as a job.yes I know this is stupidly long overdue - had trouble finding where to post, put it in the wrong place, then ao3 crashed. hope you’ll forgive mewritten for the 2020 tomione secret santa
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Tom Riddle | Voldemort
Kudos: 16
Collections: Poisoned Kiss Under the Mistletoe Tomione Secret Santa 2020





	arcanes of our own

**Author's Note:**

  * For [weestarmeggie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/weestarmeggie/gifts).



_ Don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t look don’t look don’t look -  _

  
  


Hermione cringed as she looked over what some anonymous idiot client had requested her to write. _Prompt: Mud blood war criminal Hermione Granger is the soul mate of the dark lord, the mysterious but alluring ruler of the wizarding world. She is repulsed by his snakefaced visage but also feels a strange attraction to him…”Hates everyone but Hermione" Lord Voldemort, Power Couple. I like voyeurism, exhibitionism, monster fics. Manipulative Hermione. HEA with stupidly in love barely tolerates anyone else is what I really want._ _Squicks: Rape, Water sports, torture, Cruciatus during sex, Pet play, Humiliation/Degradation, Sadism, Masochism. Dumb/naive Hermione. Remember fics should be no less than 1,500 words._

Hermione received rubbish like this quite frequently. There seemed to be a disturbing amount of people who fantasised about defiling the Gryffindor princess, heroine of the light, Harry Potter’s former best friend. She snorted. Voyeuristic perverts. There were also a surprising amount of requests for bizarre kinks and fetishes. People seemed to have some sort of obsession with tentacles. Seriously, what was wrong with them? It was absolutely disgusting. She was almost certain that Umbridge, her supervisor, took a sadistic pleasure in assigning the filthiest prompts to Hermione. (She knew better than to complain or refuse - the first and only time she did, Umbridge had _Imperio_ ’d her to write out an entire 10k word fic with a Blood Quill. She still had the scars.)

Hermione tried her best not to imagine what it was like for all the other muggle borns trapped here ever since they lost the Final Battle, typing away their brain cells to cater to horny death eaters. Hermione liked to think that she was desensitised to it all by now. That after seeing and writing some of the worst possible things human imaginations could think of she wouldn’t mind too much anymore. But the truth was she still burned with shame every time she saw one of her pieces in the Arcanes, that ‘fanzine’ they used to publish stories. Fanfiction, they called it. Ironically, after some thing the muggles did - though the ministry’s (surprisingly well funded) department of fandom would never admit that out loud.

Being a fanfiction writer was like a badge saying  _ certified freak _ , knowing that the once goody too shoes Granger girl could come up with such filthy ideas. She got teased about her work mercilessly. Well, she already worked sixteen hours a day, seven days a week; she was already humiliated enough being forced into such a degrading job. Those pureblood supremacists could all fuck off. 

She looked over her work again, resisting the urge to tear her eyeballs out. How was she supposed to even write this stupid prompt? How the fuck could  _ Hermione Granger _ of all people feel “irresistably drawn” to that snakefaced monstrosity? She would’ve understood if it was the younger Tom Riddle, who still had his good looks, but - 

_ No - _

__ A flash of memory, unbidden, came to the forefront of her mind.  _ Tom Marvolo Riddle. Dark hair, piercing eyes, icy skin, that irresistible smirk.  _ A phantom from a golden locket, whispering soft, deadly words she was almost sure were false, holding her when Ron left and Harry ignored her though she knew it had to be a lie. The secrets it - he - told her in the dead of night.

She had told hers right back, of course. Everything she ever wanted, needed, could never have. She had known what happened to Ginny with the diary and she had spilled anyway. Spilled enough, perhaps, that he could take in a bit of her soul.

Enough, perhaps, that she had taken in a bit of his.

Even now, she sometimes thought she felt an emptiness, an odd longing for something she could never have. Something missing from her soul, her magic. A strange sense of incompletion. The faint echo of a cold, gold, metallic heart beating along side her own.

_ Don’t. Think. About. That. You can’t afford to be fucking obsessed, Hermione Jean Granger, not when you have a fucking job to do and you’ll get Crucio’d if you don’t. You already think about enough disturbing shit for work that you’re barely paid for. Don’t think about him. Don’t think about him. Don’t think -  _

“Granger!” Came a sickly sweet voice. Hermione spun around, dizzy and disoriented.

“Anything wrong, my dear?” It was Umbridge, somehow standing right behind her.

“No, no, nothing, madam - I mean, Undersecretary Umbridge. What do you need me for?” She could barely suppress the distaste in her voice.

“The dark lord wishes to see you, Ms. Granger.”

“But I am in the middle of work -”

“Then bring your work over, too. He wants to see you  _ now _ .”

Hermione shut her mouth before she could make the situation worse. Carrying her entire ensemble of quill, ink and unfinished manuscript wholesale, she walked out the door.

Only to bump into a furious, shrieking figure sprinting out of Voldemort’s office, knocking her over. Hermione looked up and froze.

_ Bellatrix Lestrange. _ She couldn’t resist the urge to glance down at where her sleeve hid the scars on her left arm.

“Well?” she snapped. “Get out of my way, mud blood!”

“I'm supposed to be in the dark lord’s office right now,” Hermione shot back. The older woman stormed off in a huff, muttering under her breath about filthy, impure creatures who dared breathe within ten feet of her precious  _ lord  _ .

Lord Voldemort threw open the door.  _ “What _ in Salazar’s name in going on here!” Then he saw Hermione. “Well. You. Granger. Enter.” 

“Why am I here?” Hermione asked.

“Bellatrix was being…troublesome. Thought that she had special privileges, just because she wrote my fanfictions for me. Her writing was becoming…tiresome. Too self indulgent. She forgot whom she was writing for. But I heard that Hermione Granger was the most skilled in our fandom department. As my new personal fanfiction writer…I do hope you’re up to scratch.”

Hermione had not really taken a good look at Voldemort during the final battle - she had been more busy trying to kill Nagini, and then mourning Harry’s death. But surprisingly enough...he wasn’t really that ugly, if you looked at him up close..There was something oddly fascinating about the scales on his face...She immediately closed off that train of thought.  _ ‘You can’t think of him that way. He’s a monster. He’s uglier than a blast ended skrewt. He’s a  _ **_murderer_ ** for Merlin’s sake!” Strangely though, she felt a sudden strong urge to touch those scales on his face, if only to know what they felt like. Just out of a very random curiosity. Purely scientific. Just to try it, just once.

_ No. Stop. You cannot think that. You are not allowed to think that. _ But it was more than that, wasn’t it? A sharp tug, deep in her gut, each time her gaze landed on him –

_ Shut. Up. _

“What do you want me to write?”

“What are you working on right now?” Hermione blushed bright red. She couldn’t possibly show him…  _ that _ , could she? If he saw, saw what she had been thinking about  _ him… _

“I haven’t got all day, Granger.” Without asking for permission, he snatched her stack of parchment from her and scanned over it. She waited, eyes shut, for her inevitable doom.

...”Continue this,” he said. He didn’t comment further.

_ Wait. What. _

He handed them back and returned to his own paperwork, leaving Hermione to sit there in an odd mixture of confusion, embarassment and relief.

~~~

Why was it so damn  _ easy _ to write, with him sitting right next to her breathing down her neck? She looked down at her next paragraph. Fanfic!Hermione was standing in the same room as fanfic!Voldemort. Sprinkle in some bog-standard Sexual Tension.  _ How does she feel? _

  
  


Well, easy enough. Hermione snuck a glance at the man sitting next to her, seeming to be focusing on his paperwork.  _ Monster _ , she reminded himself.  _ Not a man. _

  
  


Heart racing, of course. Butterflies in her stomach. Heat pooling in her core, a slight wetness between her thighs that she pretended wasn’t there.

  
  


Voldemort raised his eyebrows. “Getting aroused by your own writing, Granger?” She whipped around. “Oh, don’t pretend, it’s quite obvious.” He looked her over. “If you need any... _ help _ ...relieving that...I would be more than happy to -”

  
  


Hermione realised what he was implying. “Oh hell no,” she snarled. “You don’t get to - just because - you - you’re a mass murderer, for fuck’s sake! And no one would ever want to fuck a snake-hybrid  _ thing _ like you are!”

  
  


“Really?” He snorted, pointing at her writing. “It’s actually a surprisingly common fantasy. I thought it would have been obvious, with the amount of requests you get to write those sorts of stories.” He smirked. “Have you ever wondered - just out of curiosity - how accurate your descriptions might be? Ever fantasised about trying it out - just once, just to know how it feels?”

  
  


She made it five minutes without thinking about  _ him  _ .

  
  


She made it ten minutes before she found she couldn’t concentrate on her writing at all, as thoughts of his sheer  _ proximity _ consumed her. It was too difficult to separate the two, the fiction and the reality. She gave up trying to force herself to write.

  
  


It was half an hour before she started quietly shifting her chair closer to his, wincing when the legs scraped against the floor. He frowned. “Writer’s block?” he inquired. She shook her head vehemently, and he laughed. “Perhaps I can help...my offer from earlier still stands.”

  
  


She jumped back, knocking over her chair in the process. “Fuck you,” she hissed. He raised his eyebrows, and she cursed herself for her wording.

  
  


“Can’t hurt…” he said. “You have nothing to do anyway, nothing to write...You look quite exhausted. Don’t you wish you could take a break?”

  
  


Yes... _ but she couldn’t, he was a monster... _ but even then... _ but he was right, she was undergoing a torturous writer’s block at the moment, she badly needed a stress-reliever... _ but he hated muggle borns... _ but he clearly didn’t, not as much as he said, if he was willing to fuck one... _ but he was a murderer... _ but who cared, he wasn’t about to kill  _ her,  _ and besides… _

  
  


__ A crazy thought crept into her head.  _ Why not. I’m bored. _

  
  


__ Why not.  _ Why not. Why not why not why not why not why not - _

  
  


_ Do it. _

Slowly, keeping eye contact with him, she pulled down her skirt. His red eyes glowed with sudden greed. She hooked her fingers on the waistband of her knickers, pulling them down -

“My lord?” Came a high pitched girly voice from outside the door.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.  _ Shit. _

Hermione said in a panicked whisper, “Do you have a back door? Can I apparate out? Or - I mean - maybe the - I dunno - the floo - my clothes -”

Voldemort smirked down at her. “You’ll just have to be quiet, won’t you?” She paled.

_ Shit.  _

“My lord? Is something the matter? I can come back in later -”

“Oh no, no, it’s all right, come on in.” Hurriedly, Hermione sat back down in her chair and grabbed the nearest parchment and quill, trying to look like she was doing something useful, trying to look perfectly put together as if there wasn’t damning evidence between her thighs right where she was sitting. “ _ Take notes _ ,” he hissed.

“I have the quarterly statistics report ready, my lord.” Umbridge started. “The new fanfiction department is doing quite well. We had -” she shuffled her sheafs of pink parchment paper before finding the right one “- thirty three thousand five hundred sixty nine fanfictions requested this month, an increase of nine point six percent from last month -” 

  
  


Under the desk, his hand slid across her bare thigh.  _ ‘Five…hundred…sixty…nine…’  _ What was the matter with her? She was usually much quicker at writing than this. She had always been able to keep up with her professors in lectures in Hogwarts.

His fingers slid closer and closer to her core while she desperately scribbled on the parchment, desperately ignoring that burning  _ need _ inside her.  __ “...and a sharp increase in the number of requests for the pairing of Viktor Krum and Celestina Warbeck, which may indicate that public perception of the importance of the...” __

_ Shit. _ She had reached the end of the page. Stupid parchment. Could she write on the back? No, the ink hadn’t dried yet. She shifted on her seat, trying to reach a new blank roll of parchment which was  _ just _ out of her reach without revealing that she was half-naked. _ There! _ She grasped on to a corner of the sheet, feeling victorious. __

Then she overbalanced and tripped, knocking over several neatly-organised stacks of reports, sending a jar of quills crashing to the floor.  _ Shit shit shit shit  _ **_SHIT_ ** _ \-  _

“Miss Granger, dear? Is something the matter?” __

_ Fuck.  _

Hermione got down on her knees on the floor, trying to reach an expensive-looking eagle feather quill while also hiding her naked half behind the desk. She had never been much of a gymnast. Umbridge stepped forward, looking on disapprovingly. “Can’t you use your wand, mud blood?” Then she giggled. “Oh, I had almost forgot - you filthy little creatures aren’t allowed them aren’t you? You couldn’t use one properly anyway even if you stole one.” __

_ Got it! _ Hermione returned to her seat and haphazardly re-organised the stacks of parchment, flushing bright red.  _ Idiot. Idiot. Idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot -  _

Voldemort resumed his ministrations as she started scribbling again. Hermione stifled a groan as he teased at her entrance, his fingers circling her clit but never quite touching it.  _ ‘The Tales of Beedle the Bard is currently the current most popular fandom, with over two hundred thousand estimated reads…’ _

She couldn’t stop the gasp that came out of her mouth as he scraped his nail over her clit and her fingers spasmed, dropping her quill on the floor. As Umbridge looked up from her droning speech, Hermione quickly turned her gasp into a series of hacking coughs.

“Cough drop, Granger?” the woman smiled sweetly as she produced a package of bright pink candies that looked disgustingly sweet.

“Er -” Hermione let out a small choking noise. “No. No, not at all, I’m fine, thank you.”

“Perhaps you should get a new assistant, my lord. This one seems to be a bit…” she looked down at Hermione, features scrunched with distaste “...accident prone.” __

Voldemort’s eyes narrowed and his voice lowered to a deadly hiss. “You would tell me what to do,  _ Dolores  _ ?”

She balked. “No, no, of course not, my lord, I only meant that -”

He cut across her snivelling apologies, placing a possessive arm around Hermione’s waist. “I think I’ll be keeping this one.” After the woman left, Voldemort turned to face her. “Still have writer’s block?”

“No...I think I know what I want to write now.”

~~

Bellatrix crawled out from under the desk where she’d been for the past two hours, knees sore and clothes a mess. She hadn’t been able to help herself. It was too difficult for her to stay away from  _ Him _ for even a moment. Watching the mud blood replace her made it hurt doubly hard. She wasn’t sure why she had stayed. Perhaps it was her habit of following  _ Him _ around all the time even when he was alone - she supposed most people would call her a ‘stalker’.

  
  


She disillusioned herself once she was back in the Atrium, where she could release her rage and jealousy in a blizzard of dark hexes and blasting curses. The surrounding workers quickly scurried away. None of  _ them _ could casually brush her off like  _ he _ had.

Back at home, pretending Rodolphus wasn’t there, she opened up a little black book she hid under her pillow. Lucius had kept its destroyed remnants in the secret drawing room beneath the secret drawing room for years, until she returned from Azkaban and  _ kindly requested _ that he hand it over to her. She had taken it to the best book restorer Galleons could buy. Although the hole in its center had been patched up, its magical essence was gone. It was essentially just like any other muggle diary now but Bellatrix didn’t care - pouring out her darkest dreams and fantasies into it, sleeping with it under her pillow, kissing and caressing and fondling it, she felt as though her lord was with her even when he was away.

She opened up a new page, frowning. It was a rather slim book, and without an Endless Page Charm she was now halfway through its remaining pages. She tried to write as small as she could, until even she couldn’t read her own handwriting afterward, but she would take what she got.

She couldn’t stand the thought of that Granger mud blood  _ bitch _ getting the better of her once, escaping from the Malfoy manor with  _ her wand  _ , only to steal away  _ her lord _ this time. How dare she. How  _ could _ she was the better question. Had she seduced the dark lord with her writings too? But she couldn’t have - mud bloods were inherently inferior. Surely the dark lord missed dear Bella’s stories. Surely he secretly desired her too. She would prove it. She would prove it with this story.

She dotted her ‘i’ s viciously, pressing into the page with her expensive eagle feather quill so hard that holes appeared and veins of blood-red ink bled through the thin sheets of parchment, making several pages unusable. Whatever. She didn’t care. She couldn’t. She couldn’t care about anything in this moment other than getting back at that bitch. Hermione fucking Granger. She wanted her  _ gone. _

  
  


~~~~~

It was somewhat awkward trying to write when their previous encounter was so fresh on her mind, not knowing what to think about it. She wasn’t sure when she’d started babbling. “You know...I used to write “fanfiction” when I was younger. Back when I wrote what I wanted to write and didn’t have prompts to fulfil, I never struggled with writer’s block. Just abandoned a work whenever I got bored.” She laughed, thinking of all the works in progress stashed back in her parents’ old home, never to be finished. “It was actually quite fun. A pity I can’t have that now.”

  
  


“I...suppose I did something similar. In my own childhood.” Hermione turned to him in shock.  _ Lord Voldemort, a former fanfiction writer?  _ “Ever since I was young, I would dream up alternate scenarios to books,” he said. “Fixing things I thought were wrong.  _ Improving _ them when the authors weren’t up to scratch. Making them what  _ I _ wanted rather than going through so many books just to get close to what I was looking for. Curing plots of their foolish idealism. It would be a much more interesting job than, say, rote paperwork, at any rate. Even if it was filling others’s prompts.”

  
  


He sounded...strangely familiar with what it was like to write fanfiction all day. Then it hit her. “It’s not paperwork you’re doing, is it.” Hermione realised. “It’s...you’re writing  _ fanfiction.  _ Am I - am I right?” 

  
  


He laughed. “Once upon a time before I had to conquer the wizarding world, I had ideas upon ideas I wanted to write, and ideas upon ideas I wanted to see written, but I found it wasn’t quite socially acceptable to write based on other works. That was why  _ I _ came up with the idea with the department of fandom once I took control - not Umbridge, despite what they say. To realise my childhood dream, in a way. In fact, some of the works in the Arcanes are mine, published anonymously.”

  
  


_ Just like me... _

  
  


“A place to live out your fantasies, no matter how foolish, no matter how idealistic, no matter how dark or horrific or disgusting or improbable. What child wouldn’t want that? You with your dreams of becoming a great academic, a researcher...”

  
  


“What did you fantasise about?” Hermione whispered breathlessly. Though she had an inkling of what it was - something that had begun to stir within her too.

  
  


“Power,” he replied. “The ultimate fantasy.”

  
  


_ A place to live out your fantasies, no matter how disgusting or improbable.  _ Why did that sound...Hermione frowned.  _ But didn’t -  _ Then she was struck by another sudden realisation. “It was you, wasn’t it?  _ You _ were the one who sent in that prompt!”

“Took you long enough,” he replied dryly.

“But - but why?” He laughed, at that.

“Did you really think, even as you felt that certain  _ draw _ toward me, that I wouldn’t feel the same towards you? Oh yes,” he laughed at her dumbfounded expression, “an exchange of souls goes both ways. And you certainly gave quite a bit to Salazar’s locket, didn’t you? With a piece of  _ my _ soul within it - well, what did you expect? You know, Bellatrix wasn’t  _ that _ terrible of a writer. I would have survived with her. But  _ you _ \- I have dreamed of possessing you ever since I saw you in the battle of Hogwarts, standing there with your soot streaked face and defiant words…I dreamt of being able to do  _ this  _ -“ he picked up a page of Hermione’s fanfic -“ with you.”

  
  


She...didn’t know what to think about that.

  
  


“I could offer you a deal. You could work here instead of the department, write what you want instead of filling prompts all day. You would have my protection. Perhaps some degree of power as well - the rest of them are all incompetents. Foolish and undeserving. Bellatrix wanted to be where you are now, but she had none of the strength. Or the intelligence. Think about it - you could have anything,  _ anything,  _ if you were here…”

  
  


_ Power. _

  
  


~~~

He returned to their office and presented it to her. “A wand. Bellatrix’s old wand, in fact. It has refused to work for her even after it was taken back from you after the battle of Hogwarts. It is yours now.”

~~~~~~

  
  


“My... _ lord _ ?”

“Yes, Hermione?”

“Umbridge is a bitch. I want her gone.”

“Shall I...”

“No. I want to do it myself.” He watched with delight as her expression darkened and her gaze intensified. She was absolutely glorious when she was angry. Some of that Gryffindor righteous, directed in a more useful place.

~~~~~

Hermione watched with satisfaction as Umbridge writhed and screamed on the floor of the office where Hermione used to spend her days slaving away writing fanfiction. The other workers looked away, pretending not to notice. 

  
  


“My lord!” Umbridge gasped in-between her screams. “She’s a mud blood, surely you won’t allow this -” He raised his eyebrow, stepping back, and the woman dissolved into more incoherent sobbing. 

  
  


“She can do whatever she wants,” he replied.

  
  


When she finally gasped out her last breaths, Voldemort turned to Hermione, roughly bringing his lips to hers.  _ They’re watching _ , she told herself - but overwhelming desire pushed that part of her down. She wrapped her hand around his neck - its scaly texture was oddly satisfying - and kissed back furiously. His tongue slipped into her mouth, it was forked and all the better for that, and she didn’t give a damn because in that moment she was consumed with the sensation of bliss and utter  _ rightness  _ everything else melted away. 

  
  


Hermione looked around, heart rate through the roof. Did anyone -

  
  


No one was looking. Everyone had their heads down, working.

  
  


She breathed a sigh of relief. 

  
  


~~~~

“Where is it?”

“The Forest of Dean.” she whispered back. Silently, he took her hand. She felt the familiar tight, squeezing sensation of Apparition before they landed in the middle of a clearing. He didn’t even need to search, just silently flicked his wand and the mangled remnants of an old locket soared into his waiting hands.  _ ‘Reparo _ ,’ he said. He was the master of the elder wand after all. It could beat anything, cure anything, fix anything – even ‘irreparable’ damage caused by basilisk venom.

Hermione stared and stared and stared as its shape untwisted and shards of gold came together again, as memories came flooding back. This time, she didn’t try to forget them.

The locket. The locket.  _ That locket _ .

She remembered. She remembered soft whispered words in her ear. Dark hair and darker eyes and that insufferable smirk. No, he would never be back, never the same again. But she had another chance with her lord now. And this time, she wouldn’t give him up.

She lowered her head as he hung the gold chain on her neck. She relished the familiar, comforting weight, its surprising warmth against her skin. “Thank you, my lord” she whispered, tears of gratitude streaming down her cheeks as she finally felt  _ complete  _ .

“Call me Tom.”

~~~~~ 

They stood in a room full of ministry officials gathered for some sort of celebration. Tom didn’t really care. All of them were vain, pathetic idiots.  _ Fools.  _ Utterly worthless. None of them came close to his Hermione in power or intelligence or competence.

  
  


He sighed as she saw Bellatrix pushing her way through the crowd, trying to reach them. The woman was such a nuisance. He’d shown Hermione the fan fiction Bellatrux had published a few days ago - they had both gotten a good laugh out of its sheer ridiculousness.

“What is it this time, Bellatrix?” Tom sighed. She turned to Hermione instead.

“You’ll never be as close to him as I was,” she snarled. “Do you understand, mud blood?  _ Never! _ I was his most devoted for  _ decades _ before your filthy self was even born, he has taught me things you could only dream of, you will never satisfy him like I would have! Your writing is inferior!  _ You _ are inferior to me in every aspect, filthy blood and all! You think you are of any importance to him? You will remain his dirty little secret until he gets bored of you in a week!”

“Bellatrix.” Said Tom.

She was back to her old kicked-puppy demeanor in a second. “Yes, my lord?” she gasped breathlessly.

“Close your mouth before you say things you know nothing about.”

She looked hurt. “But all I said was true!” He sighed and shook his head.  _ ‘Let’s disprove her notions, shall we, Hermione?’ _

  
  


He beckoned for her to come forward. She smirked as she approached his throne and seated herself on his lap. The crowd gaped and stared, but no one dared to criticise.

Hermione tossed aside her hair to reveal a glint of gold on her throat. Bellatrix paled as she realised what it was. ‘ _ Not so special after all, are you’  _ she thought to herself miserably.

Bellatrix retreated to the back of the crowd. She couldn’t look away like she wished she could, however. She couldn’t look away as the mud blood bitch bit at her lord’s neck, as he stroked her breasts through her robes and she gasped and moaned. The two of them - they looked like they somehow were... _ right _ together. Like a perfect match. Like, dare she say it -  _ soulmates. _ It was just that  _ feel _ they gave off. Something that clicked. Something that _ she _ had never had with her lord, no matter how much she tried to deny it. Hating herself, she lowered her hand into her knickers and started stroking herself furiously.

  
  


~~~~~

“The Arcanes - make it open to the public. Prompts can be viewed by anyone, and anyone can write. There  _ are _ people who actually enjoy writing this stuff - it could accomplish much more than if it were just overworked muggle borns working on it. Anyone can subscribe to a particular mailing list and receive new works through owl post. Like how the muggles did it, yes - but better. This can be so much more.”

“Well...now that Umbridge is gone, I need a new Senior Undersecretary. You could take over the department of fandom. Implement these changes yourself.”

_...Changes... _

_ If...but it wouldn’t work...but it could...but...if  _ anyone _ could...perhaps… _

  
  


“...I have an idea.”

~~~

“Lemon drop?” he frowned, looking over Hermione’s shoulder.

“The Order’s code word,” she replied. “A distress signal of sorts. For when anyone needed immediate help, life-or-death, but couldn’t send a patronus.” She continued writing. “According to the dead toad’s statistics,  _ everyone _ is reading fanfiction these days. I’ll have this printed on the front page - there’s no way they’ll miss it.”

  
  


~~~~~~~~~~

“Hermione! Why are you doing this to us? What has he  _ done _ to you?” Ron sobbed as he strained against the ropes restraining his arms and legs. “Please, I know you’re in there! You still have a chance to go back!”

“Haven’t I made it clear enough to you already, Ronald? I. Don’t. WANT. To!”

“You’re lying - he must be imperius’ing you or something, the Hermione I knew would never do this…”

“No,” Hermione retorted, “I chose this path of my own volition.” She turned around and started walking away, back toward Tom’s office, to the sound of the Order’s screams.

  
  


~~~

Hermione started scribbling on a new roll of parchment. An account of all the sinful things she and Tom had done together the past few days, but from the perspective of a jealous, jilted Bellatrix Lestrange invisible in the corner during each encounter, forced to watch as her precious dark lord made love with her nemesis. She was no dirty little secret, the dark lord’s whore on the side - she was willing to let  _ everyone _ see what they did together. She had nothing to be ashamed of, after all. She had always thought the whole ‘revenge fic’ trend was petty, but she could understand the appeal now. She cackled slightly, picturing how Bellatrix would feel about  _ that. _


End file.
